Archive for the 'The Bet' Category

Tonight was the last week of the first half of the Bill Porter Memorial League, the last chance to make a run at first place. Our awesome bowling last week and sweep of 7 points put us in second place coming into tonight. With two other teams tied with us for second and us one point out of first place, it was going to be a struggle. But it wasn’t just solely a battle with the the other teams, it was also a battle between Brandon and Andrew who were tied going into this week, and Bob, only three points behind them. Let the battle begin!!

We were teamed up with the Flying Pins, who had the same handicap as us, therefore, it was going to be a scratch game. We annihilated them in the first game beating them by over 100 pins. All four of us shot above our average and so Brandon and Andrew were still tied.

The second game was a different story, though. Both Bob and I fell apart and were each a little over 20 pins shy of our average. Brandon also failed to shoot his average. The only one of us that did was Andrew. Omigoodness, Andrew pulled into the lead! Because the three of us did not fare so well, we ended up giving the second game to the Flying Pins. Crap, we were hoping for a sweep in order to cinch first place. Now all we could do is hope that we win the third game and pray the other teams did not win 5 points.

The third game was a vast improvement and three out of four shot above our averages and we won the last game by 52 pins. Due to Andrew’s superior bowling skills and amount of trash-talking, Brandon couldn’t handle it and buckled under pressure. Andrew has triumphed and won the bet!!! Yeah Andrew!

Now, because of the closeness of the teams, we had to stick around and see how the other two teams fared against each other. BP’s House needed to win their third game big to come up with 3 points, and Chuck Bales came up big with a 247 to secure the overall against Abducted. With the third game in hand, we knew we were winner for the first half, which guaranteed us a chance to roll for first place in the league after the second half. We are a force to be reckoned with, I mean, really, we were the newbies on the league and now, they know they can’t mess with us or else we’ll strike with our fangs and our bowling balls! Tee-hee!

So, it’s been a while since this has been updated with our bowling shenanigans. It’s not my fault, really, I blame Andrew for this. I mean, he started it with not posting for two weeks and so I had to follow him by not posting last week. Shameful, I know, but I’m a follower, that’s who I am. So, I won’t discuss last week’s bowling too much because I really don’t remember it at all. Except that I bowled my FIRST CLEAN GAME! How crazy awesome is that? My first game ever with no open frames at all. It was fantastic. And looking back on the scoresheet, it seemed like, overall, we bowled well as a team, enough to take 5 from the other team (who had really strong bowlers, they gave us pins).

This week, we bowled against the blind, which was great because we didn’t have to deal with people so we were able to concentrate on our own bowling. The only thing we had to do was be within 40 pins of our team average to win points. The first game was easy-peasy, considering I bowled a 205 (54 pins above my average!) and Brandon was 56 pins above his average with a 246. The man can never let me beat him in bowling, damn him. Now the second and third games for me were shit, you wouldn’t have thought I could bowl a 205 with the way I bowled the other two games. Thankfully, Andrew, Brandon and Bob picked up the slack for me. Andrew had a great last game, earning himself a 223, which means that he’s still in the lead on our Bet, but Brandon is only one point behind. Andrew, you better watch out, Brandon’s gunning for you! So, we were well within 40 pins of our average all three games, which means we won 7 points. The Snakes are a force to be reckoned with. HISSSSS!

This year, we’ve modified the bet so to encourage consistency to better improve averages. Last year, if we beat our average or beat our average by 25 pins, we would get 1 or 2 points respectively for a possible of 6 points per week. Now, we can get 1 point per game over average and an additional 2 points for 50 pins over our series average. Consistency equals improvement. Hopefully.

In week 4, we were hoping for some consistency to kick in. The previous two weeks, we’ve won 2 games but were blown out in one game, costing us the total point. Well, bowling is simple. Bowl your average, factor in handicap, and you have a good chance of winning. Good thing for us, we started off the season pretty low, unintentionally of course. This was a good week for the most part. Jen was the only one whose average has started off close to last year but she had a rough week. The rest of us have started off pretty poorly but finally rebounded this week. Even though we gave up 50 pins a game to the Roadkill Crew, they just couldn’t keep up with SoaL and we swept them.

On a side note, we had Andrew on the hook for a pizza in both the first and third game. However I choked each time and saved him from buying our dinner. I also choked in the third game and missed my third game point. After tugging ball 1 in the 10th and leaving a nasty split, i only needed two pins to beat my average by one. Instead, I tugged it again and only got one. Choke. Speaking of Choke, the recently released Choke was produced by ATO Pictures, founded by Dave Matthews.

This week we implemented the “Pizza Frame” policy. What is the “Pizza Frame,” you ask? Well, here’s the answer! In the fifth frame of a game, if three out of four of us bowls a strike, the person who fails must buy the pizza for that week, hence the “Pizza Frame”. I don’t remember how this all started, it’s not an official USBC thing, it’s a Snakes on a Lane thing. We must do what we can to entertain ourselves.

Poor Bob, he was the first victim of the “Pizza Frame” during the second game so he treated us to a pepperoni pizza. I have to say, for bowling alley pizza, it wasn’t bad. A lot of grease but a handful of napkins soaks that right up. Even with the extra fuel, we only took four out of seven points from Team12. I’m sure it had something to do with me throwing a couple of gutterballs, oh vey, I’m so ashamed. I do have to say one thing though, it seems like we are settling into a more comfortable routine. Andrew and Brandon have improved immensely this week while Bob and I faltered a wee bit. It’s only one more week until we start our Bet again so I better shape up.

Despite the lack of an ending post for the year, leaving our immense readership in suspense, the season did end. Jen won the bet. It took us something like four months to actually get around to taking her to her victory lunch.

And now it’s all starting again. We’ve moved houses to the Brunswick Four Seasons, and moved to Tuesday nights. Let’s hope this season is a good one.

Also, since Bob now has his precious iPhone, let’s see if we can pressure him into some real-time post action. At least once.

After a huge scare last week in which I allowed Brandon to come with one point of me in the Bet, I kicked it up a notch and bowled my booty off. We started off well, with two of us bowling over our averages and two just shy of it. But we couldn’t overcome the Fabulous 4 with one teammate bowling 44 pins over his average. That was okay, though, we still had a potential to win 5 points. Second game: we all bowled over our averages (it’s been a long, long time since that has happened) and for sure we thought we had them but somehow, they got that game as well. Let’s just try and get at least two points…we can do it. Last game, two of us bowled over our averages and two did not so when the other team earned two points, we couldn’t blame anybody but ourselves for our disappointing showing. Lost 7 points, very sad.

So while Brandon was pouting, he put Bob in charge of adding up the scores and that was when things got interesting. Bob couldn’t figure out why the numbers weren’t adding up to what was on the screen. Apparently he had drank a bit too much beer. After quite of bit of chattering, we found out that the other team had put their handicap in the computer incorrectly, thereby giving themselves more of a handicap, which means…we really won 5 points! Woo-hoo! We’re not losers after all. Hopefully, these points will keep us in the top because we want to win some money!

And by the way, because of my awesomeness at bowling, I am now five points ahead of Brandon in the Bet. Let’s hope I don’t eff it up in the last week of bowling.

So last night, i headed up to Olivette to pre-bowl since I will be out of town this weekend. This was my first time prebowling this season and generally, I don’t prebowl well. Bob came with me to be my “oral” support, meaning so that I have somebody to drink with. Of course, he was already half-cocked from the wine.

The first was a typical pre-bowl game. I struggled to find a line and was all over the place. The lanes were pretty dry and my black widow was finding it hard to stay on the right side of the head pin. I ended up shooting a 171. Not really a great start but I was closer to my average than Bob was when he prebowled the week before.

After the lack of control during the first game, I switched over to my well-used Messenger that typically never lets me down. Meanwhile, Bob and I engage in our 2nd pitcher. The second game started mediocre and I was on pace for a dutch 200 through the first five frames. But I was able to string some together and ended with a 220, which was more than 25 over average so thats two points towards the bet.

Yeah, a 3rd pitcher is definately a good idea. My goal was to try to stay consistent in the 3rd game and just best my average. However, that was not the case because I put together a good run of strikes. Meanwhile, Bob has now passed the “buzzed bowling is good bowling” point and was now on the “i can’t keep it out of the gutter” path. That’s ok though since I was driving and he wasn’t prebowling. I ended up with at 244 earning another two points towards the bet.

So, recap. 171 220 244 = 635 and 4 points. More beer seems to be the way to go to bowl well. This also gives me four weeks over 600 and averaging 214 during this stretch. Ah, its good to be back. I just hope I can stay here and help get us back to 1st place.

After several weeks of being #1, SOAL succumbed to the pressure of being so good and lost 7 straight points this past week. It could be that we had a week off, the bitter cold or that one of our members was missing. We couldn’t pinpoint why we got our butts kicked, the fact is that we did. It all started off with Bob’s terrible showing during his pre-bowl. If he hadn’t have bowled beforehand, we may have had a chance. A dismal three games in which he was unable to attain his average. After hearing his scores, we were a bit shook up when we walked into the bowling alley to face Taking Care of Business. Well, not only did we have to bowl against a team in which we had to give them 87 pins, they were the second place team, only 4 points behind us. Damn. We came pretty close the first game which meant that they were beatable. It helped that Brandon bowled a 225 and I bowled a 163, that boosted Andrew’s poor 139 and Bob’s 131. But that wasn’t enough and we lost by 13 pins. We were annihilated in second and it was due to Butt Crack’s 244 (every time this guy bowls, you see his butt crack and I don’t mean a little bit, I mean his whole ass is hanging out, ewwww). That was 98 pins above his average. Yeah, we had no chance. We even improved on the last game, the other team just bowled better than us. But I did score 184, which was the highest score out of everyone in the third game (yea me). That meant we fell to 2nd place, but I have faith that we can regain the #1 position. In the end, I ended up with 4 points, Brandon 3, and Andrew and Bob received 0 points. It’s time for me to gloat a bit, I’m pulling ahead!!!

We’ve all been slacking a bit on the weekly updates so I’ll just sum it up in two words: Bob won. Yep, he is the big winner the first half of the season so he gets to make the rest of us pay for his dinner at the restaurant of his choice. We ended up in 7th place going into this last week and we took 5 points from the Fabulous 4. Now, we’ll just have to wait to see how the teams above us did before we know for sure what place we are. Hopefully, the 6th place team bombed and we move up.

Next week the points are wiped clean and a new battle will ensue. Who will come out on top, who knows? If I win, I will have them take me to afternoon tea, just to rub some salt into their wounded prides.